Scott Chan is shocked the market hasn't reacted more to the crisis emulating from the US-Israel-Iran conflict. But the CalSTRS CIO is confident its one fund approach allows it to position dynamically and ensure diversification no matter what is presented.
Stephen Kotkin, global geopolitical expert and Stanford academic, has warned that there is an “increasing governability challenge in high-income democracies” where government departments face declining capacity to perform core functions due to complex regulatory systems and bureaucratic tasks.
Norges Bank is a lean organisation despite managing a $2.2 trillion portfolio. Across the fund’s four global offices, there are only 700 staff, or $3 billion per person, which is why it has made pursuing AI-driven efficiency a core organisation initiative – and a non-negotiable requirement for its employees.
Funds are operating in an extraordinary environment, with Scott Chan, chief investment officer of CalSTRS, saying he has never witnessed so many “large shifts stacked on top of the other” in his investment career. Amid the change, investors are increasingly shifting to a scenario and regime-based asset allocation.
Mark Horowitz, a leading computer scientist and electrical engineer at Stanford University, has declared that Moore’s Law is “basically over”, which will have significant ramifications for artificial intelligence investors who are counting on more computing power to feed into more complex models.
The size of the current infrastructure investment gap and the speed at which it is widening mean there is both a desire and a need for more public-private partnerships to unlock funding. Investors say that collaboration with local governments and raising public awareness of private investment benefits are crucial.
Stanford president Jonathan Levin said the university’s top priority is maintaining the partnership with the federal government while safeguarding its operational freedom, as the institution balances financial reliance on Washington and political scrutiny from the Trump administration.
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